I linked to a a powerful article on the lack of leadership regarding rape and sexual abuse in The Southern Baptist Convention a few days ago. 

The article starts with the graphic story of  Debbie who was raped by her minister when she was a young teen. When she got conceived she was  made to go in front of the church and confess her sin of being pregnant. She was told not to tell, and was threatened if she did.

She raised her child and fearfully kept quiet hoping it was over.
Finally she began to speak out when she heard he had not stopped using his power to sexually abuse.  
She has been treated like dirt under the feet of church leadership for speaking up.
She has written to all leadership in the SBC she could think of wanting to know why no one stopped this minister from going on to sexually abuse others.
There is currently no committee or group in the SBC victims can go to for recourse.  
With an estimated 101 thousand in  SBC church leadership and about a 3 % offender rate, he is one out of…do the math.

She found SNAP, a sexual abuse survivor group that is working with her to draw attention to the lack of oversight in the SBC. 

Ethics Daily has the copy of the emails sent to her by a seminary president who mentored and promoted her  abuser.  The seminary president blames victims and plays the victim.
He is known for his public prejudice of women  saying, “Every man should own one.”  His seminary made national news  (and faced considerable public derision last year) for it’s new women only program. Bachelor of Arts in Humanities with a concentration in homemaking.

EthicsDaily.com obtained a copy of the e-mails from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests SNAP, a support group formed to seek reform amid the Catholic priest pedophilia scandal five years ago, for the last year-and-a-half has turned attention to the nation’s second-largest faith group, Southern Baptists.

Patterson said in an e-mail dated Jan. 13 that he doesn’t usually respond to anonymous e-mails. Vasquez identified herself only by first name in her initial e-mail Jan. 12 but more fully in a response to Patterson the following day. Patterson said he was making an exception out of pastoral concern.

But Patterson turned defensive when Vasquez asked him to explain comments attributed to him in news stories questioning his handling of allegations in the late 1980s and early 1990s against Darrell Gilyard, a one-time protege now accused of sending lewd text messages to a teenager in Jacksonville Florida.

“Debbie, what more did you want me to do?” he asked. “Would you feel better if I shot him? I am not a detective, a judge, a jury or an executioner. But I did then and since, and always all I could do.”

Of SNAP, which recently Southwester’s trustees to put Patterson on administrative leave and investigate whether he could have done more to warn other churches about Gilyard’s alleged pattern of sexual abuse, Patterson had this to say:

“SNAP is just as reprehensible as sex criminals. To make false accusations against a person in an effort to tarnish his reputation, as they regularly do and have most recently done to me, is just as reprehensible and involves just as little integrity. My little granddaughters, 10 and 8, were here the other day and heard on TV that their grandpa harbored sex criminals! I suppose that this is somehow OK since I am a pastor?”

In a follow-up e-mail Jan. 13, Patterson continued to chastise Vasquez.

“You continue to suggest that I am not doing enough, without any facts whatsoever,” he wrote. “You also protect evil doers who have slandered others. Is the slander of SNAP somehow not a hideous sin also? I am sorry Debbie, but I cannot help anyone whose mind is made up to do wrong even when I regret deeply what has happened to them. I will pray that God meets your every need.”

In his first e-mail, Patterson counseled Vasquez about her pain. “If you please God with your life He will make it up to you in ten thousand ways, because He is a just, loving and merciful God,” he wrote. “But He will not bless if you allow your sorrows to cause you to join false accusers in defamation of character.”

Patterson is currently engaged in a wrongful dismissal  law suit  of Dr. Sheri Klouda. ( The documents and information are at SBC Outpost)
Truth is, it is not just a seminary President who promoted a sexual abuser and then blames a victim. Impropriety of Patterson’s protege went public as far back as the 1980’s. 

 SBC President Frank Page has responded defensively as he did with Fr. Doyle. As has an SBC lawyer as you’ll see in your read of the Nashville article.  Frank Page also defensively smears SNAP.

“Why can we not set up a way to keep track of those who have been convicted or have confessed or have been shown to have had inappropriate sex with minors?” she writes in an email to SBC president Frank Page. “Please open up your heart and mind and talk with some of the people who are trying to get things changed…. But please do not ignore and pretend this problem does not exist. Please help to stop other people like myself from being hurt the way I was hurt.”

Page begins his reply with a request that Vasquez keep their communications confidential: “I send all emails expecting that, as a matter of courtesy, the recipients would ask my permission before sharing them with others. I hope you will honor this request….”

The rest is brief. Most of it, like in the letter he sent to Father Thomas Doyle, is spent defending the SBC—even asking Vasquez to “pray for us as we consider what we are able to do to help in this situation.”

“Please do not accuse me of ignoring or pretending this problem does not exist,” he writes. “There are people who are trying to paint a picture of me and our convention which is patently untrue. In fact, some of the groups who are doing this are nothing more than lawyer groups, looking to raise their caseload level.” He’s referring to the efforts of SNAP.

There was at least one lawsuit filed. He is not a victim. Speaking up, organizing, networking for safety and support does not make abuse survivors ‘lawyer groups looking to raise their caseload level.’ 
How many have been silenced, threatened,  shamed and  ignored? 

Rape and sexual misconduct are crimes of power.
I’ve seen ‘poster children’ of abuse commit suicide because the pressure, re-victimizing and stonewalling is too much to bear.

Yesterday the heir apparent to the SBC Presidency announced he has asked not to be nominated. Dr. Al Mohler, another  SBC Seminary president, nearly died from surgical complications last year. Now doctors have discovered  a precancerous tumor in his colon and he has stepped aside from all his responsibilities while he faces another medical crisis.
This may change the level of the political climate at the SBC Convention this year, but one of the hot topics will be the 2007 resolution calling on SBC executives to get guidelines in place.

Let’s be fair.
Most denominations have zero tolerance policies.
Expert help is available to victims and leadership
Conduct guidelines are in place as they would be in any instutional setting.
Offenders are investigated by law enforcement and immediately removed from power so the vulnerable are not re-abused and churches can again places of sanctuary for those so profoundly violated.

The Nashville Scene article
StopBaptistPredators
2007 SBC resolutions on sexual predators and clergy sexual abuse
Fend for the flock - prior post